The productivity and perils of open source software has been a topic pretty much beaten to death. Yet the landscape in IT, as always, is shifting -- because of the recession and because of a white hot interest in cloud computing. It's time again, then, to look at the pluses and minuses of open source software models in the context of tight IT budgets and the advent of cloud-based services for enterprises. Our latest analyst roundtable examines open source in the context of economics, complexity, competition, and the disruption of the shifting business models in software. The major question is: Does using open-source software pay off in a total cost sense, compared to commercial offerings today? Furthermore, how will this change over the coming several years as cloud model take hold? Please join noted IT industry analysts and experts Tony Baer, senior analyst at Ovum; Jim Kobielus, senior analyst at Forrester Research; JP Morgenthal, independent analyst and IT consultant, and David A. Kelly, president of Upside Research. Out guests are Paul Fremantle, the chief technology officer at WSO2 and a vice president with the Apache Software Foundation, and Richard Seibt, the former CEO at SUSE Linux, and founder of the Open Source Business Foundation. Our discussion is hosted and moderated by BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner. Read a full transcript of the discussion at http://briefingsdirect.blogspot.com/2009/04/open-source-software-and-cloud-curse-or.html. Charter Sponsor: Active Endpoints. Sponsor: TIBCO Software.

The paybacks from designing a strong IT architecture can now be enjoyed by more than the enterprises that build them. Increasingly, enterprises are reaping the fruits of good IT architectures that their SaaS and cloud providers have developed. Think of it as a multiplier effect of IT modernization -- everyone using the services benefits. In essence, by building good applications and infrastructure, SaaS providers are providing more than applications and services -- they are delivering business agility as a service. To learn more about IT architectural best practices can achieve added benefits for the users -- at greatly reduced total costs -- BriefingsDirect examines the experiences and approaches of Workday, a human capital management (HCM) SaaS provider. Join Stan Swete, CTO of Workday, in a podcast discussion moderated by IT industry analyst Dana Gardner. Read a full transcript of the discussion at http://briefingsdirect.blogspot.com/2009/04/saas-providers-advanced-architecture.html. Sponsor: Workday.